Cute and stylish crafts, projects, and DIYs from a proud craft dork.

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Monthly Archives: March 2013

I decided to get festive this year and went all out making some St. Patrick’s Day treats. Thank goodness for Pinterest for all the good ideas! There are just tons of fun looking St. Patrick’s Day food and booze recipes. I refrained from the booze ones for now but one of the perks of cooking with booze is the leftovers. And the beers you get to have while cooking, obviously.

If you like Irish booze, these cupcakes will definitely give you an excuse to buy a few kinds. Like I said, I found the recipe on Pinterest, via this website. They’re called Irish car bomb cupcakes, how can you not love them? Guinness chocolate cake filled with a whiskey ganache and topped off with Bailey’s frosting. Warning: they are kind of labor intensive as far as cupcakes go so set aside a few hours but they are DELISH. Really rich and tasty. I took a bunch into work and someone even called it the best cupcake he’s ever had! The recipe made 24 cupcakes and I have a lot of the Bailey’s frosting left over (not complaining). I even saved the insides of the cupcakes I dug out to fill them – don’t judge me. I used a ziploc baggie with a tip cut off to frost them and it actually worked pretty well, if you want them to be a little jazzier and don’t have a pastry bag.

Irish car bomb cupcake!

Even with the hefty amount of frosting I put onto each, there was a ton leftover.

As for the Irish beef hand pies…they turned out pretty well. This is a great time to remind everyone of the lesson learned as a child not to judge a book by its cover because the pies…they aren’t pretty. Here is what I blame that on: I have no rolling pin and used a Nalgene bottle, I had been cooking for 2.5 hours and was starving so my standards were lowered, and I was also 3 Guinnesses in by 9 pm when I finally finished them. Either way, they’re nowhere near as cute as Martha’s (got the recipe from Pinterest via this link from Martha Stewart’s mag, slide 22 if you’re interested) but still tasted good. Another slightly time consuming recipe but it made 8 of these pies which are enough for a meal alone plus a bit of filling leftover. I froze half of them and added onions to the recipe which I think was a good call. Happy late St. Patrick’s Day! Is there anything special you make every St. Patrick’s Day? I’ll need more ideas for next year!

Irish beef hand pies. Odd shapes and some holes in the pastry but it worked out.

This post has been a long time coming, which is not really excusable for how simple the project was! My favorite part is how cheap it was too. I picked up this little tv stand at an estate sale last summer for no more than $2. The idea was to mod-podge some cool paper on top of it, paint the legs, and make it a fun little side table. I toyed with the idea of mod-podging (which I had previously referred to as “hodge podge” and “modge podge”, both of which I learned don’t exist) some actual objects onto the top of it (i.e. postcards or pictures) but once I found this paper, I figured it did the work for me. I picked this up at a store in Minneapolis that’s hard to describe other than it has lots of fun STUFF. I’m loving these papers! A few bucks each but tons of styles and they’re thick and sturdy enough to use for all kinds of projects. I’ll definitely have to find more ideas as I’ve found these at an art supply store near me.

Anyway the mod-podge was probably the most expensive part of the project. It nearly broke the bank at $7. I pulled the tray piece off the legs and shellacked that paper onto the tray with a good 5 or 6 coats. It created a nice thick coating but I think I’ll still need to be careful not to get it wet or spill on it (not my strong suit). One issue I had was getting the paper tightly fitted into the curved corners. If you look closely (please don’t), the paper ripped in one corner and kind of stretched over another so it doesn’t fit in tight. Better luck next time. I did find that getting the paper and the tray pretty soaked in mod-podge first helped with the pliability. I threw about 4 coats of gold craft paint on the legs with a foam paintbrush and ta-da!

Total cost (estimated):

Table – $2

Paper – $3

Mod-podge – $7

Gold paint – $3

For a grand total of only about $15! Not bad. I’m still undecided on how much I like this. It’s definitely a handy size and height for my living room but probably not something I’ll move into a decent house one day. It works with my small apartment and mismatched decor for now though. What do you think? Cute or cheap looking?

Here’s the festive 70’s tv tray before. I know, I can’t believe I would cover those fetching ribbons up either.

View from the top. I’m kind of obsessed with Paris and fell in love with the paper. I think the angled placement worked out too.